Be careful with Palworld! Many corrupted apps imitating the gaming phenomenon of the moment are circulating on the Play Store and the App Store to suck up players’ personal data and implant malware on their devices.
Imagine immersing yourself in a world populated by cute creatures called Pals. HAS Both tools and companions, you can tame them, train them, use them to build structures, mine them, and even make them fight using firearms. This world is that of Palworld, an action-adventure survival game developed by Pocket Pair, which is the phenomenon of the moment! Combining survival and exploration mechanics with the aesthetics and gameplay of the famous franchise Pokemon, it was released in early access – so it is still in development and is far from finished – on January 19 on PC and on the Xbox One and Xbox Series consoles. Since last week, millions of players have embarked on the adventure of what they call “Pokémon with weapons”.
For the moment, it is difficult to know whether Palworld will manage to settle down over time as a Fortnite or if it is a fleeting success. Still, the game sold more than 7 million units in just five days, breaking an impressive record – and that’s not counting sales on Xbox or Xbox Game Pass players! But the game is so popular that cybercriminals have decided to take advantage of its success by developing corrupted copies, then distributed on the Play Store and the App Store. These are multiplying like hotcakes! Be careful, because downloading them can cost you a lot!
Palworld: credible and attractive mobile apps
It is neither more nor less than the studio behind the game which sounded the alarm on. “There is no phone app. […] We have reported this issue to Apple, which operates the App Store, and Google, which operates Google Play. We draw your attention to the fact that downloading these applications may result in the leakage of personal information stored on your smartphone or fraud.”, warns Pocket Pair. Cybercriminals do not hesitate to use real artwork and screenshots of Palworld to make it appear that it is an official version. In short, players who are unaware that Palworld is only available on PC and Xbox consoles can easily be tricked. The only way to play Palworld on mobile is to go through Xbox Game Pass Ultimate – through cloud gaming – by connecting a controller to the smartphone.
This is far from the end of the troubles for Palworld ! Its phenomenal success has attracted the attention of the Pokémon Company, which will investigate whether the game is a simple parody worthy of the name or a plagiarism incorporating Pokémon intellectual property – it is true that the design of certain Pals is very close to that of Japanese creatures… The phenomenal success of the studio could therefore end as quickly as it began!